The Law of Attraction and Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager is an often-quoted argument, not so much for the existence of God as for the wisdom of believing in God. It was invented by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).

Pascal's Wager is really quite simple and, for a philosophical concept, easy to understand. Pascal starts off by insisting that we must choose between believing or not believing in God. Agnosticism is not a choice. I suppose this option would have made the rest of the "wager" untenable, so we'll have to allow him this limitation.

Given this choice, we should consider the possible consequences of belief vs. non-belief. There are four possibilities in this model. We can either believe or not believe, and we can be right or wrong. By showing us the possible rewards or punishment in each case, Pascal intends to convince us that one option is the best bet.

If we believe in God and we are right, we are rewarded with salvation. If we believe and we are wrong, we do not gain or lose anything, except the fact of being wrong (which should not matter once we are dead, especially since in this case there is no hereafter). On the other hand, suppose we do not believe and we are right. This leaves us in exactly the same place as the previous option (believing and being wrong). Aside from any value we may place on being right for its own sake, we gain nothing. Finally, consider if we do not believe and are wrong. In this case, we risk the fate of eternal damnation.

Using this formula, Pascal argues that even if the odds of God existing are slight, we are still better off making this wager that He really exists. There is simply too much to gain by believing and too much to lose by not believing.

The very notion of something as serious as believing in God or not being reduced to a wager has a kind of intrinsic silliness. It can be viewed as the kind of frivolous intellectual thought experiment that makes many people critical of scholars and philosophers.

Richard Dawkins, a contemporary skeptic, who might be categorized as a fundamentalist atheist for his fervor, goes so far as to suggest an "anti-Pascal" wager, arguing in his book The God Delusion,

" it could be said that you will lead a better, fuller life if you bet on his not existing, than if you bet on his existing and therefore squander your precious time on worshipping him, sacrificing to him, fighting and dying for him, etc."

Dawkins is not really taking the Pascal wager very seriously; he says, in fact, that Pascal was probably joking when he proposed it. Still, it illustrates an alternative way to interpret the "odds" in this wager.

One thing Dawkins and other critics have argued is that the fundamental flaw of Pascal's Wager is the assumption that we can choose whether or not to believe. Belief, after all, seems to be an involuntary mental position, not one we can will into being. This is a valid objection, one we will return to a little later as we look at Pascal's Wager from another perspective.

It is worth noting that in most debates between believers and non-believers, the assumption is that we are talking about the monotheistic God of the Bible. Thus, Pascal's assumption that God will reward us for being right and punish us for being wrong. He clearly has the no-nonsense, jealous, vindictive Old Testament God in mind with this wager. Yet in truth we have many choices besides monotheism and atheism. It might be interesting to see how Pascal's Wager might be transferred to a non-monotheistic framework.

The Law of Attraction is a concept popularized by the book and move, The Secret, but it is not new. Some version of it has probably existed for as long as religion itself, but we can trace it at least as far back as the spiritualist and esoteric movements of the 19th century. The law of attraction is really part of a wider belief system that is sometimes called new age, but is really a form of mysticism or pantheism --the idea that God is one with the universe or creation. It follows from this that each individual is a part of creation (or God).

It is easier, however, to hone in on the Law of Attraction than on something more abstract such as mysticism, simply because it's something that has tangible results. Contemporary skeptics, predictably, despise The Secret, the Law of Attraction and similar concepts at least as much as they do traditional religion. There are, however, significant differences between monotheism and LOA.

In the pantheistic cosmology of the Law of Attraction (LOA) universe, there is no angry deity to punish us if we are wrong. Conversely, even when we use the Law of Attraction correctly and are "rewarded," it's not the same as the kind of reward doted out by a traditional god. It is more like the karma concept of Eastern religions (which have strongly influenced the new age mindset).

The LOA is an impersonal force, like gravity, and it works whether we believe in it or not. Of course, its many detractors become livid at this often-repeated analogy between gravity and the LOA. Gravity, they argue, is something that has been scientifically proven; the LOA (they claim) is rubbish pulled out of a huckster's hat. Still, the analogy works to illustrate how those who believe in the LOA think of it -as a force rather than a being.

Simply put, the LOA states that we attract into our lives what we focus on. In order to attract positive things we must believe they are coming. If we expect bad things to happen, they will. Some popular ideas that are in line with the LOA include "you create your own reality," and the message and title of Napoleon Hill's influential book, Think and Grow Rich.

Returning to Pascal's Wager, how might we rephrase it to fit the LOA? We can dispense with melodramatic outcomes such as eternal salvation or damnation. LOA advocates usually focus on making our lives better in the present moment. So we can say, as with the original wager, that we have the choice of whether or not to believe in the LOA. Once again, we have the chances of being either right or wrong.

If we believe in the LOA and we are right, we will attract the good things that we want. If we believe and are wrong, we will not attract what we want and do not gain anything. Or do we? Here is where it becomes interesting. Even detractors of the LOA will admit that having a positive outlook can be helpful. We are more likely to succeed in what we do, interact well with other people and, yes, attract good things into our lives if we expect and focus on the positive. So does this mean that the LOA is something everyone agrees upon whether they admit it or not? Not at all. There is a big difference between literally attracting whatever you want and merely facing a neutral universe with a positive attitude. Still, the point is, when it comes to the LOA, it would seem that we gain something by believing whether it's true or not.

Following Pascal, let's look at the obverse. If we do not believe in the LOA and we are right, we face virtually the same outcome as with the previous case. Once again, even though we are left in LOA-deficient universe, we might still find ourselves at a disadvantage compared to those who believe, even if they are wrong. Finally, suppose we do not believe and we are wrong? Well, the LOA is no jealous Old Testament deity, so we don't have to worry about eternal damnation. However, we do miss out on all the advantages that belief would bestow.

So if we apply the Pascal model to the LOA, we end up with a different result than if we apply it to monotheism. Interestingly, it becomes a better bet when applied to the LOA! There are more ways to win. This, of course, is debatable. One could argue (as many have) that a belief in the traditional God has benefits on our lives and actions, apart from the truth of it. This, however, is often more of an argument for religion as a moral force in society than something from which individuals can benefit. It has been said, for example, that a belief in God, motivates us to live "good lives."

When it comes to having an impact on our individual lives, traditional religion is at least as apt to make us fearful and judgemental as to give us comfort. The LOA is more in line with modern psychology at least in terms of its focus on self-esteem and positivity. Overall, it seems then that, apart from its objective truth, believing in the LOL is a pretty good wager.

Yet we are still left with the rather daunting criticism about the involuntary nature of belief. Does this change at all if we apply Pascal's Wager to the LOA? Clearly, many people have no desire to believe in the LOA. Traditional monotheists and committed skeptics alike find the very idea abhorrent; for the former, it's a heresy (monotheists who accuse new agers of trying to be God are not really that far off base, though they certainly oversimplify the concepts involved); for the latter, it's the epitome of irrationality.

There are, however, many people who find the LOA an appealing idea that they'd like to believe in, but are not quite convinced of. For them, living as though the LOA is true could very well be beneficial. One big difference between believing in God as a separate entity and the LOA is that the line between belief and non-belief is far less solid. It is, for example, possible to believe that the LOA works some of the time, or even most of the time, but not quite all of the time. There is really no corresponding ambiguity when it comes to a discrete entity such as God. You may be agnostic, but you are agnostic about two possibilities only.

Teachers of the LOA say that you can gradually build up your belief by seeing that it works, first in small ways, then larger. So, once again, with the LOA, belief is not an all-or-nothing proposition; there is a continuum along which we can, if we like, propel ourselves. So we might conclude that for those open to it, a belief in the LOA can be "willed" (though most teachers of this principle would find the word "will" too forceful a concept; the typical idea is more of a Taoist, "go with the flow," or as the Abraham books say, "allowing").

Is Pascal's Wager, then, a good argument for believing in the LOA? This is something everyone must consider for themselves. In truth, Pascal's Wager remains a fairly frivolous argument from a philosophical point of view. It has been used here simply to illustrate some often overlooked aspects of the LOA.

Sources:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Abundance Meme Project

The Secret

The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Houghton Mifflin 2006

Think and Grow Rich
by Napoleon Hill
Filiquarian Publishing 2005 (original edition published in 1937)

The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing
by Esther & Jerry Hicks
Hay House 2006